Stripping away Green Stuff

I've searched all I can and cant find anything about this, so be gentle if this is a common post. My buddy bought a tyranid army on ebay pretty cheap and was planning on pinesol'ing them to strip the paint. Unfortunately, all of the genestealers have extended carapace modeled on their backs in the form of a huge ugly wad of greenstuff.

The genestealer backs are ridged so its near impossible to pry off the greenstuff. Any suggestions on how to remove it without melting the plastic? Would Simple Green / Brake fluid do anything? The only thing I hear of that removes greenstuff is acetone and that kills plastic.

This is not meant to be a thread-jack, but I have a similar question regarding a prebuilt model and figured I'd lump it in this thread.

I have a Monolith that was carelessly put together and has several gaps. I want to disassemble and clean it up for reassembly. What should I use? It looks like a mix of epoxy and/or super glue was used. Or, what are plastic-safe solvents for the various adhesives out there?

With the best will in the world, Greenstuff is supposed to be a tough, chemically resistant material. There is no, repeat no solvent that might attack it, that would not damage the plastic first and worse.

You have but one hope. This is that as greenstuff is somewhat less flexible than plastic, that you might be able to flex the plastic away from underneath, especially if the previous owner didnt bother to degrease the plastic before applying the greenstuff. Then, if you get an little opening along the 'fault line' then you could insert a needle, and lever the greenstuff away. But I wouldn't hold out much hope for this frankly.

Ryan Dancey, Vice President of Wizards of the Coast, believed that TSR failed because of "...a near total inability to listen to its customers, hear what they were saying, and make changes to make those customers happy." Are you listening, Games Workshop ?

I run into this kind of problem quite a few times, and the best solution that I find (don't always work, but it does work most of the time especially if the model isnt degreased before the putty was applied) is to use a pin-vise, carefully drill many holes on top of the putty without going too deep to damage the model.. that way, it'll ease the tension on the surface and eventually the putty will crumple on its own.

It would be alot easier to 'kill' the putty if it's on a metal model. All you got to do is soak the model in nail polish remover ($2 a big bottle) for 3 days, then you'll notice the putty's color changes and the texture will somewhat becomes rubber-ish.. very easily to peel off afterward.

Thank you guys very much for the suggestions. He wont be particularily excited by this news but ahh well, at least he now has some options and judging by the craftsmanship of the big green blobs I doubt it was degreased.